OK, we’ve heard this story before. Guy directs award-winning documentary. Commercial production house makes him an offer he can’t refuse. Agency hands him a great script and instant fame is won. While this rendition may be a little oversimplified, such is the story of bicoastal Hungry Man director Bennett Miller.
While New York-based Miller claims he’d never really pursued commercials because it seemed like an impenetrable world, he had the good fortune of falling into the hands of Hungry Man’s three partners, directors Hank Perlman and Bryan Buckley, and executive producer Steve Orent.
A couple of months ago, Hungry Man caught wind of Miller’s documentary The Cruise, which recently won the Wolfgang Staudte Award at the Berlin International Film Festival. The partners immediately saw Miller as a shoe-in for spot directing, called him in for a chat and signed him. "The Cruise was just tremendous and Bennett is such a good guy that we said ‘hey, let’s do this thing,’ " said Orent.
A similar scenario unfolded two years ago when Hungry Man signed director John O’Hagan after viewing his documentary Wonderland. O’Hagan was awarded his first commercial effort via New York agency Dweck & Campbell, a three-spot campaign for Dial-A-Mattress and the resultant work turned out to be a wacky gem in the annals of advertising. One of the spots, "Arctic Ground Squirrel," went on to win a Gold Lion at the Cannes International Advertising Festival.
Just two months after joining Hungry Man, Miller was commissioned to direct a five-spot branding campaign for Top Driver Driving School, again via Dweck & Campbell. The Conn.-based private school was working on acquiring schools nationwide and needed some great advertising to put them on the map. Dweck & Campbell president/creative director Michael Dweck and co-copywriter/art director Carol Holsinger and Steve Pearson (Pearson is now with Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, San Francisco) took their offbeat script to Hungry Man. "We needed someone who could direct our :30 story in an intrusive and compelling way," said Dweck.
Indeed "Donut," "Mailbox," "Coffee," "Body Bag" and "Gas" celebrate the rare push towards great creative advertising. The spots are all spin-offs of the old strategy where one company tries to portray its competitor as a low-life. The spokesman for the driving school introduces each :30 spot with "Hi, it’s Jim from Top Driver Driving School with hidden camera footage of that other driving school."
Through the viewpoint of a lipstick cam, "Donut" opens to an obscenely fat driving instructor, covered in cream filling and crumbs, shoving donuts in his mouth. He spots an elderly person at the side of the road and, to his delight, nails the unsuspecting geriatric in the back of the head with a Boston cream. Titillated by his precision, the instructor proceeds to laugh so hard that he starts choking uncontrollably as donut bits come flying out of his mouth.
In another moment of comedic brilliance, an intense driving instructor in "Coffee" tells his tutee that if he spills his coffee once, he’s going to punch him in the face. Of course the coffee spills and the instructor tells the frightened student to "pull over, I’m gonna kick your f@%king ass." A beating ensues, replete with head bashing against the steering wheel and a final punch in the face.
"My experience working with Bennett can be described in five words: Mel Brooks meets William Wyler (director of Ben Hur)," said Dweck about the shoot. "I now think Bennett has perfected the :30 documentary," he added.
The spots are due to break at the end of April in Indiana, Connecticut and Ohio where Top Driver already has driving schools in place. The campaign will go national as Top Driver expands into new markets. Meanwhile, at press time, Miller was casting a spot for the Oregon Lottery via Moffatt/ Rosenthal, Portland, Ore., and Hungry Man was bidding on two more jobs for him. "For being a first-time commercial director, he gets it. In industry language, that’s a good thing," concluded Dweck & Campbell account director Dan Ravine.
Working with Miller on the Top Driver spots were Hungry Man exec producer Orent, producer John Towse, production manager Ralph Laucella, DP David Morabito and editor Jen Brooks. Michael Dweck of Dweck & Campbell served as the spots’ creative director, with Dweck, Steve Pearson and Carol Holsinger sharing copywriting and art directing credits. Matt Hauser and Sherman Foote of New York-based Big Foote Music did the music and sound design.
